The Colorado Senate has just joined legislative bodies in several other states in making a grave error. They’ve passed a resolution of support for a “compact” which very name promises to change a constitutional construct without benefit of the lawful process for changing a constitutional construct. The bill in support of this Compact will go to the House next week.
What is the NPV Compact?
Participating states agree to set aside the results of the presidential election within their own state and to apportion electoral votes according to the national popular vote results instead; securing, by PUPOSEFUL EFFECT, an outcome PURPOSELY REJECTED by the Constitution’s framers as well as over 240 years of practice and precedent. Rather than pursue a Constitutional Amendment to change the manner of the President’s election, proponents of this compact seek a “shortcut” via deception.
Below are the arguments presented in favor of this Constitutional sidestep:
• Proponents claim that by not attempting to abolish the Electoral College, this Compact avoids the need for an Article V Amendment process, yet can, as the name promises, deliver a fundamental revision to the Constitutional method by which the president has been elected since the ratification of our Constitution.
• Referring to this language of Article II Section I; “Each state shall appoint, in such a manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the state may be entitled…”, proponents of the compact claim the state legislature is not bound to any representation of their own citizens’ vote results in the appointment or direction of electors. The State Legislature, therefore, is at liberty to set aside the results generated by its own citizen’s votes and to direct the state’s electoral votes however it sees fit.
BTW: The language of Article II Section 1 doesn’t direct the conduct of a state-wide vote for the president, either! Since proponents of the Compact claim that State Legislatures are not compelled to representation of their own constituents in the appointment or direction of electors, there is no reason for a smaller state adjoined to this unholy compact to bother with a state-wide vote at all. Its own legislature will be compelled to set aside the results generated within their state in deference to the compact.
• Assuming then, that the appointment and direction of Electoral Votes may be divorced from the vote-result generated by the citizens of the state, the Legislature, then, is free to enter into a compact – an agreement with other states – compelling the award of its votes.
• Having asserted a Legislature’s authority to separate the allocation and direction of electors from the expressed political will of its own constituents, proponents of the measure offer the following inane talking point for supporting legislators to parrot: “I support the National Popular Vote because I believe it is important for each individual vote to be counted and weighted equally.” Irony, anyone?
To claim that converting an election BY THE STATES into a National Popular Vote doesn’t require a Constitutional Amendment process is dishonest.
There is precedent for allocating electors in a manner proportionate to the results of the state-wide election. There is precedent for allocating them in full to the winner of the statewide election.
There is NO precedent for DIVORCING the allocation of electors from the results in one’s own state in pursuit of a compact with people OUTSIDE the state.
This attempted sidestep of the Constitution’s provisions for electing our president and for the amendment process cannot withstand challenge and shouldn’t.
Requiring ratification by at least 38 states, the Article V process assures both strong and well distributed support for any changes to Constitutional provisions. Attempts to sidestep the clear provisions for amendment lead to further division and DISTRUST.
Those who believe the US President should be elected by a singular popular vote rather than by the states, should pursue this very consequential amendment in the LAWFUL way prescribed under Article V.
Listen very carefully whenever you hear leftists talk about the sanctity of the vote, or the importance of making every vote count. Those words and phrases are carefully chosen, and though the difference between, for example, ‘Make every vote count,’ and ‘Make every voter count,’ is subtle, it is both important, and illustrative.
If our goal is to make every voter count, then we must do everything possible to ensure the integrity of our electoral system, including, for example voter ID laws, to ensure that only citizens can vote, and that no fraudulent voting occurs.
If our goal is to make every vote count, then we want the fraudulent, and the illegal, ones too.
Another great article Patricia!